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Information about Hebrew Languages

"Hebrew language" most commonly refers to Modern Hebrew; in historical contexts, it commonly refers to the Biblical Hebrew language.
Hebrew
Spoken in:Canaan
Language extinction:largely extinct by the 1st century, liturgical Sephardi Hebrew revived as Modern Hebrew since the 1880s.
Language family:}}}
 Semitic
  West Semitic
   Central Semitic
    Northwest Semitic
     Canaanite
      Hebrew }}} 
Writing system:Hebrew abjad
Language codes
ISO 639-1:he
ISO 639-2:sem
ISO 639-3:variously:
heb — 
aoq — 
obm — 
xdm — 
The Hebrew languages refer to a variety of Canaanite languages and dialects historically spoken by various peoples in the region of Canaan whom Abrahamic religion believes to have been Hebrews who emigrated from the Chaldees. These different languages were not necessarily more or less related to each other than to other Canaanite languages, and their traditional distinction as Hebrew languages is almost purely by religious belief.

Of the varieties of Hebrew, only one — Modern Hebrew — is used as a spoken language today, and is one of the official languages of the State of Israel. A few others survive as liturgical languages, but are otherwise not actively used in daily life.

Hebrew subdivisions in Biblical Canaan

Abrahamic religion believes that there were (at least) four Hebrew nations in Canaan: Ammon, Moab, Edom and Israel, all believed to be direct descendants of the Hebrew patriarch Terah,[1] whose son Abram and grandson Lot (Abram's nephew) settled in Canaan and adapted to the local language of the Canaanites. Although they are believed to have had contact and trade with the indigenous Canaanites, it is also believed that the more pious families of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob forbade intermarriage or assimilation to Canaanite culture, ultimately giving the Israelites a culture permanently separated from the Canaanites.

Language of Biblical Hebrews before Canaan

If (as the Book of Genesis implies) the Hebrews came from elsewhere rather than being native to Canaan, their language was most probably not a Canaanite one (as Biblical Hebrew linguistically is). Biblical scholars who accept this feature of the account in Genesis have put forward several theories as to what this language may have been:
  • The language was Akkadian, the predominating language of the Chaldees.
  • The language was an early form of the Aramaic language, more specifically the same language spoken by Laban, another descendant of Terah. This theory assumes that Laban inherited the language ancestrally from Terah, thus assuming that the Hebrews spoke Aramaean languages.
  • It was a Northeast Caucasian language, perhaps closely related to Avar.
  • The language was one of the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages, a non-Semitic language family based in eastern Anatolia. This theory assumes that the Hebrews were originally Hurro-Urartian-speaking, and different descendants of the culture adopted local languages wherever they sojourned or settled. It also associates the Hebrews either with the Hurrians, or with Urartu and the mountains of Ararat, the traditional landing site of Noah's ark.
  • The early Hebrews were highly multilingual and no one language clearly predominated. This would be plausible considering Abraham and Lot as sojourners, learning and speaking the local language of the places they traveled and in which they traded.

List of Hebrew languages

Notes

1. ^ The Amalekites, Midianites, Kenites, and Ishmaelites were also, according to the Bible, descended from Terah, but we have little knowledge of their individual languages. Likewise the Bible regards the Aramaeans as descendents of Terah's son Nahor, but their language, though closely related to Hebrew, is distinct in many respects.

Further reading

  • Hoffman, Joel M. 2004. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3654-8.

See also






 Jewish Languages
 •  • [ e]
Afro-Asiatic
'''Hebreweras:Biblical | Mishnaic | Medieval | Modern
dialects:Ashkenazi | Sephardi | Yemenite | Sanaani | Tiberian | Mizrahi | Samaritan Hebrew
Judeo-Aramaic (Aramaic):Biblical | Targum | Talmudic | Barzani | Hulaul | Lishana Deni | Lishn Didn | Lishanid Noshan | Samaritan Aramaic
Judeo-Arabic (Arabic):Southern Iraqi | Northern Iraqi | Moroccan | Yemenite | Libyan | Algerian
Other:Cushitic: Kayla | QwaraBerber: Judeo-Berber
Indo-European
Yiddish (Germanic)dialects:Eastern | Western | Litvish | Poylish | Ukrainish
argots:Klezmer-loshn
Jewish English:Yeshivish | Yinglish
Judeo-Romance (Romance):Catalanic | Judeo-Italian | Ladino | Haketia | Tetuani | La‘az | Shuadit | Zarphatic | Lusitanic | Judeo-Aragonese
Judeo-Persian (Iranian):Bukhori | Juhuri | Dzhidi | Judeo-Hamedani | Judeo-Shirazi | Judeo-Esfahani | Judeo-Kurdish | Judeo-Yazdi
Judeo-Kermani | Judeo-Kashani | Judeo-Borujerdi | Judeo-Khunsari | Judeo-Golpaygani | Judeo-Nehevandi
Other:Yevanic (Hellenic) | Knaanic (Slavic) | Judo-Marathi (Indo-Aryan)
Turkic DravidianKartvelian
Krymchak | KaraimJudeo-MalayalamGruzinic


Biblical Hebrew, sometimes called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, in which the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh was written, and which the ancient Israelites spoke.
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Canaanites redirects here. For the 1940s social and political movement in Israel, see Canaanites (movement).
See also: Phoenicians


Canaan
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An extinct language is a language which no longer has any native speakers, in contrast to a dead language, which is a language which has stopped changing in grammar, vocabulary, and the complete meaning of a sentence.
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The 1st century was that century that lasted from 1 to 100 according the Gregorian calendar. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period
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Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by contact languages such as Ladino, Portuguese, Persian, Dutch and Arabic.
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Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century

1850s 1860s 1870s - 1880s - 1890s 1900s 1910s
1880 1881 1882 1883 1884
1885 1886 1887 1888 1889

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Events and Trends

Technology


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A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language. As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics.
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Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 300 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. They constitute the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only branch of this group spoken in Asia.
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West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. One widely accepted analysis, supported by semiticists like Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard, divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western.
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Central Semitic languages are an intermediate group of Semitic languages, comprising Arabic and Northwest Semitic (including Canaanite (Hebrew), Aramaic and Ugaritic).

Different classification systems disagree on the precise structure of the group.
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Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The languages of this group are spoken by approximately eight million people today.
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Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and eventually Philistines.
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writing system is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.

General properties

Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that one must usually understand something of the
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Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |}

This article is mainly about Hebrew letters. For Hebrew diacritical marks, see niqqud (for the vowel points) and cantillation.

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ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. It consists of 136 two-letter codes used to identify the world's major languages. These codes are a useful international shorthand for indicating languages.
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ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as "Alpha-3" codes. There are 464 language codes in the list.
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ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. It extends the ISO 639-2 alpha-3 codes with an aim to cover all known natural languages. The standard was published by ISO on 5 February 2007[1].
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Hebrew}}} 
Writing system: Alefbet Ivri abjad 
Official status
Official language of:  Israel
Regulated by: Academy of the Hebrew Language

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Ammonite}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sem
ISO 639-3: aoq

The Ammonite language is the extinct Hebrew Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day Jordan, and
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Moabite}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sem
ISO 639-3: obm

The Moabite language is an extinct Hebrew Canaanite dialect, spoken in Moab (modern-day northwestern Jordan) in the early first millennium BC.
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Edomite}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sem
ISO 639-3: xdm

The Edomite language is the extinct Hebrew Canaanite language of the Edomites in southwestern Jordan in the first millennium BC.
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Canaanite languages are a subfamily of the Semitic languages, which were spoken by the ancient peoples of the Canaan region, including Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and eventually Philistines.
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Canaanites redirects here. For the 1940s social and political movement in Israel, see Canaanites (movement).
See also: Phoenicians


Canaan
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Abrahamic religion is a term commonly used to designate the three prevalent monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam[][] – which claim Abraham (Hebrew: Avraham
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Hebrews (or Heberites, Eberites, Hebreians "Habiru" or "Habiri"; Hebrew: עברים or עבריים, Standard ʿIvrim,
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Ancient Mesopotamia

Euphrates Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Uruk ' Ur ' Eridu
Kish ' Lagash ' Nippur
Akkadian Empire: Akkad
Babylon ' Isin ' Susa
Assyria: Assur Nineveh
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An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. It is typically the language used in a nation's legislative bodies, though the law in many nations requires that government documents be produced in other
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Anthem
Hatikvah
The Hope


Capital
(and largest city) Jerusalem

Official languages Hebrew, Arabic
Demonym Israeli
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A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a language, frequently a dead language, that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life.
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